


Purple Skinned

by Lagerstatte



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bruises, Canon Compliant, F/F, Female Ignis Scientia, Female Prompto Argentum, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Soulmates, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20509955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lagerstatte/pseuds/Lagerstatte
Summary: Ignis escapes her captors without Prompto's help; Prompto tags along in the aftermath.





	Purple Skinned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saisei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saisei/gifts).

> I hope you enjoy!

There are two things Prompto thinks she’s really going to beat herself up about after this is all over. Well, actually there’s loads, but two main things. Neither are technically her fault, but it’s not like guilt listens to technicalities. At least hers doesn’t, anyway.

The first thing is that she sent Ignis there in the first place.

The second is that she didn’t realise Ignis was even in trouble until too late. Way too late. And she would have realised — should have — if only they’d been soulmates.

\- - - - -

Ignis isn’t her soulmate, even though they’re together and probably (hopefully? They talk about it sometimes, but it always feels like everything is on pause while Noct is gone) going to marry. They’re on the same page with kids, and living together in a little house somewhere urban, and get a pet dog at least. That’s the goal, and assuming they both survive.

She isn’t Ignis’ soulmate either, though she knows Ignis loves her. And she loves Ignis — she loves her like whoa. She wants her, wants to live with her, wants to fuck her, wants to make married life work so, so, so bad. But she knows they’re both settling.

It’s hard to deny that when both their soulmates is someone else. Someone else who just happens to be Noct. But they’ve learnt to make it work.

At least, Prompto thinks, they’ll make it work if only Ignis doesn’t die because Prompto is an idiot and Ignis isn’t her soulmate, so she can’t tell when Ignis is afraid, hurting. Dying? Dead.

“_They said they had info on the tombs,_” Prompto had told her. "_You should go check it out._"

Only when she’d got back to the hunters’ camp they’d told her there weren’t any hunters out that way, only organised crime. Gangs who picked off small hunting parties, travellers, supply line convoys. They steal goods and sometimes ransom the victims back to their families or whoever will take them. Or sometimes they just kill them. Prompto’s pretty sure she’s heard rumours of cannibalism.

She doesn’t let herself think of cannibalism and thinks about ransom instead. There’s a whole fuck ton she can give up in return for Ignis. She has Noct’s whole armiger at her fingertips. Curatives, weapons, armour, food and water, survival gear. She knows she’s not _meant_ to hand it over just because Ignis is in danger. Something small, yeah, totally worth Ignis’ life, but she knows she’s not going to stop at small if big is what they’re asking. She knows both Ignis and Gladio, and Cor and Monica and everyone else, would be super disappointed at the very least. But—

She doesn’t wait for ransom letters, because maybe they won’t realise who Ignis is and what they can get for her. It’s not like Ignis can’t look after herself, but if she’s expecting allies and what she gets is murderers, then — then Prompto isn’t going to think about it.

Prompto doesn’t take the car, because that can be heard and seen from miles away. She goes by chocobo instead, and chatters to it quietly, so her anxiety can come out her mouth and not get bottled up and explode at the worst time. It takes almost a day to get to where she directed Ignis, where the harsh lights of the fake hunters illuminate the forest, and Prompto has to move carefully to avoid the daemons that are attracted to it, lurking on the edges where it’s bright but not too bright.

The soulbond in Prompto’s heart is dull and barely noticeable, telling her Noct is out there, somewhere. Just chilling, far away. It says nothing about Ignis.

Maybe Ignis got away. Maybe she’s hurt. Maybe she’s dead.

When Noct returns, will Prompto have the guts to tell her Ignis didn’t make it, or will Gladio have to?

She picks out which gun is best and keeps it at the tip of her fingers, just on the edge of the armiger. Or at least she imagines doing that, because the armiger isn’t actually a space where things inside can be close or far away. It’s the mental image she’d used when learning how to move stuff in and out, though, and it stuck.

Prompto skulks around the perimeter for about ten minutes before she realises that Ignis has already freed herself, killed some of her kidnappers and sent the rest running, and found some food and water to help herself to to boot. All without Prompto’s help. Prompto practically worships how scary competent Ignis is, but at the same time it really does suck to know she’s the reason Ignis was in trouble, and also she’d been useless to get Ignis out of it. Really, Ignis would be better off without her.

The misery of being actively detrimental to Ignis’ wellbeing mixes weirdly with the dizzying relief that Ignis is okay after all. She swallows it — no time for bullshit — and announces her presence with a shout,_Iggy!_ so Ignis won’t knife her by accident.

"Prompto," Ignis says, dropping her cup on the table and turning. She waits until Prompto is within reach, holding out her arms, but instead of the hug Prompto goes in for, Ignis pats her down instead. Looking for injuries, Prompto realises. "What are you doing here? But I’m glad you’re all right."

"Dude," Prompto says, and she touches Ignis’ face as lightly as she can. There’s a bruise all down the side of her cheek, and it reaches up to the scar tissue around her eye but doesn’t go through it, making the scars stand out even more than usual. "You’re the one who got captured by the bad guys."

"They had no idea who I am," Ignis says and sounds, if anything, pleased by it. "It’s incredibly easy to escape when your captors don’t factor in our access to the armiger."

‘I don"t have a car,’ Prompto says. "And they wouldn’t let me take two chocobos. I have one though. His name is Butternut."

"There are cars here," Ignis says. "I imagine you can get one running, and if you drive slowly it shouldn’t be a problem to lead Butternut behind us."

Prompto freaking adores the way Ignis talks about chocobos. She loves how Ignis says Butternut so seriously, like Butternut is an Insomnian lord whose name deserves gravity and respect. What she doesn’t love is the way she doesn’t even know Ignis is hurt until they walk to where the nearest promising looking car is and Ignis falls back, gritting her teeth and panting.

"I’m fine," she insists, but accepts Prompto’s arm to lean on, and that tells Prompto she’s lying through her teeth.

"What did they do? Do you need a potion? Rest?"

"None of that. Let’s just get out of here before anyone of ill intent returns, shall we?"

That, Prompto agrees with, even though it kills her to just act like Ignis isn’t breaking out in a cold sweat just walking twenty metres to the car. She’ll stop as soon as she can and make Ignis rest, or take a potion, or whatever else she needed to get better.

Prompto drives slow and Ignis sits in the passenger seat, holding on to Butternut’s lead so she can drop it and let Butternut run if they get into trouble and need to desert the car. Prompto’s concentrating on the road, making extra sure she runs over as few potholes as possible, but it doesn’t she misses how Ignis is twisting in her seat, obviously in pain.

"I don’t need curatives," she says, and it’s so resolute Prompto knows it’s hopeless to argue. But she hates the idea of Ignis hurting. She hates it even more that she doesn’t know how bad it is, and when it’d happened. Before, she’d felt it when Noct’d got got by a bulette’s spiky bits, or when her back pain got cripplingly bad, or when the breathlessness of an arachne’s electric attacks caught her before she could warp away. She knew when something was wrong with Noct. She even knew what, most of the time. But with Ignis?

She’ll be able to check her over properly once they get back to the hunter camp, and they’ll also have first aid stuff she’ll probably be able to guilt Ignis into using. But first they’ll have to get to the camp, and Ignis is looking paler and paler every time Prompto glances at her.

The road turns muddy and rocky, and Prompto slows the car. She can see a familiar blue off to one side, not far away. 

"Is there something wrong?" Ignis says.

"Well, yeah," Prompto says. She hates putting her foot down. She can feel herself flushing already, nervous from confrontation that hasn’t even happened yet. "You. I can tell you’re hurt, and the hunters’ camp is still over an hour away. So did you want to stop here? There’s a haven."

"I’ll be quite all right," Ignis says, which is exactly what Prompto expects. "We needn’t stop for my sake."

Prompto doesn’t drive, though, and Butternut sticks his head in through the window and coos. It distracts Ignis, who reaches up to scratch under his chin.

"Sure?" Prompto says. If Ignis were her soulmate there’d be no hiding how much pain she’s in, and she could call Ignis’ bluff.

She’s about to drive on, but Ignis hesitates, so she sits and waits instead, feeling like she’s waiting to see if a feral cat will come close enough to touch. Butternut nudges Ignis’ shoulder with his beak and Ignis hisses, pushing him away.

"Yeah, so, totally fine," Prompto says, but leans over so she can help keep a puzzled chocobo from shoving back in and headbutting her injured girlfriend.

"Perhaps," Ignis says tightly, attempting wry and failing only a little. "A short break might be on the cards."

"Sweet." Prompto is already sitting back behind the wheel, driving onto the side of the road, trying to pick out how they can get as close to the haven as possible. Sure, the car isn’t technically theirs, but she’d prefer no one made off with it all the same. Making it back on just one chocobo is not what she wants, so she unscrews the daemon lights and takes them up onto the haven, just to make sure. Someone might steal a car with no daemon lights, but she’s pretty sure they won’t.

By the time Prompto’s got the daemon lights and is up on the haven, Ignis has already built up a fire and got out two chairs. No tent, but Prompto is hopeful she can make this an overnight stay. It occurs to her that maybe one of the reasons Ignis gave in is because she doesn’t want anyone else seeing her hurt like this. It’s both frustrating and nice to be trusted, but Prompto thinks the frustration is worse. Plus it doesn’t mean much that Ignis has let Prompto see her like this when it’s obvious she’d not have if she had the choice.

Well, whatever. Now that she has Ignis to herself she can find out how far her injuries extend. And if there’s that creeping guilt that she should have realised as soon as she saw Ignis, she should have given her a potion right away, she shouldn’t have subjected Ignis to a long car drive, it’s nothing new.

Ignis is kneeling in front of the fire when Prompto comes up behind her, touching her shoulders for a moment before getting to work. Even though there are chairs Ignis hasn’t bothered to sit, and that and the fact that she way more in pain in the car than walking makes Prompto think a back issue? A butt issue? She’s going to find out, anyway.

Ignis wears the kinds of bras that are less lace and more high performance sports tops, so she doesn’t object to Prompto sliding her shirt off where anyone can see, were anyone here to see. Not that they are. Ignis isn’t _prudish_, but she’s uncomfortable when she can’t choose exactly what she’s wearing. She can’t control what people think about her face, but she can with her dress sense.

Too bad. Prompto drapes the shirt over the back of a chair and winces at the sight of Ignis’ exposed skin: way too pale, except the parts that are not pale enough, violent dark red and turning blue-black in places, in the shitty light. It makes a dapple pattern with the scars. When Prompto touches her back, tracing just above one mark shaped like a boot heel and below one that’s too long and straight to be anything other than a stick or pole or something similar, she can feel heat radiate from the swollen, hard flesh. Where the skin is unmarked it’s cold and damp with sweat.

"Shit," she says, and her heart tugs at the sight. A few years ago she probably would have cried.

Ignis sighs. "It’s worse than it looks," she offers, which is complete bull and they both know it, but Ignis is incapable of not trying to make the people she loves feel better.

There’s nothing Prompto can do to make it better, though. She could try to convince Ignis to take a potion, but she already knows Ignis will refuse. After all, bruises heal on their own. Potions are for when you’re bleeding out.

"Did you want some painkillers at least?"

"I took them before you arrived," Ignis says, and who knows if she’s even telling the truth.

"If I say right now it’s just so I can feel better," Prompto says, "can I set up a tent so I can check you over properly? Please?"

Ignis reaches up and over her own shoulder to place her hand over Prompto’s hand, where it’s still resting on Ignis’ back. "It’s really not necessary," she says, and Prompto kneels so she can press her lips to the soft skin of Ignis’ neck.

Inside the tent, where the lamp makes everything orange tinted, Ignis lets Prompto tug off her clothes and lie her down on the bed rolls. She’s on her front, and her breasts squish out beneath her in a way that Prompto will never not love. They’re more or less free of bruises, which makes Prompto feel better about Ignis lying on them, even though it looks super uncomfortable.

Prompto is skinny, stringy, a runner, and she’s not sure if she wants Ignis’ boobs or she’s happy just appreciating them on Ignis. _I’d started talking about reduction surgery with my doctor,_ Ignis had told her with a resigned sigh, _before we left._

But it’s not like she can stop and appreciate Ignis’ body in the good ways. Ignis’ body exists to be worshipped, long and lean with the sort of thighs and butt Prompto had thought only video game characters had. But now it’s marked all over by someone who isn’t her, someone — multiple people — who’d hurt Ignis, kicked and punched and hit her with something, and Prompto half wants to know what and half wants to never, ever know.

Instead of asking Prompto sits back on her heels and just looks. There are bruises are all over Ignis’ body, from shoulders to ankles. There’re a couple of scrapes too, one on Ignis’ elbow and another on the jut of her hip, and they’re not bad but Prompto wipes them clean with an alcohol wipe anyway. She tears it in half so she only has to use one, but Ignis makes disapproving noises about the waste anyway. Whatever.

After the alcohol wipe Prompto realises she should have washed Ignis with soap and water first, but it’s fine, she can still do it. Better late than never. The water is cold, but she knows Ignis will get up and get dressed again if she goes to heat it up on the fire, so she tells Ignis to brace herself and uses it anyway. It’s the wrong choice: Ignis had already been chilled, but as she lies there and lets Prompto trail the washcloth over her skin as gently as possible she gets even colder.

"I’d prefer to be clean," Ignis says, but she’s breaking out in serious goosebumps and starting to shiver badly.

"Shit, I’m sorry," Prompto says, but when she stops Ignis pushes herself up with a grunt and tries to take the cloth to finish the job herself.

"Please don’t be," Ignis says, sounding incredibly tired. Maybe Prompto can soothe her into sleeping here, too. Maybe not. She reclaims the washcloth and tries not to wince in sympathy at Ignis’ grimace as she lies down on her back.

There’s a bruise that’s particularly long wrapping around Ignis’ waist, and now Prompto’s paying attention she can see it split the skin, neat in a scary kind of way. Where’d it come from? Did they whip her with something? A belt? If she’d been Prompto’s soulmate Prompto would have felt it, but that’s all. She still wouldn’t know what made it.

Ignis is silent all the way through. Prompto feels sick down to her stomach, but at least she’s not ugly crying.

By the time Prompto’s done, her fingers are clumsy with cold. She doesn’t want to know what Ignis is feeling like, but she tries to hope the cold is helping with the pain. Probably the shivering is making it worse.

Ignis’ skin is a mess of scars. They’re almost all from Altissia, running up and down Ignis’ left side, rough and lumpy around the edges. Ignis says they’re dead, that she can’t feel anything on them including pain, but Prompto’s seen her rub them when she thinks no one’s looking. They’re plain red-brown patches in the messy, bright red paintwork of the rest of her skin, and Prompto thinks they look painful but really has no idea.

"Hold on," she says, and she gets a clean jacket from the armiger, one of her older ones that’s been worn soft with use. She drapes it over Ignis, then backs out of the tent. Butternut needs to be fed and watered, and the fire put out before it burns up all their fuel.

"You’re really treating this much worse than it is," Ignis says when Prompto kicks off her boots getting back into the tent. She’s got a blanket covering her now, but she’s still got Prompto’s jacket tucked up over her chest and shoulders. It looks stupid, but Prompto feels a pang of love for it anyway.

"You were going to pretend you weren’t hurt at all," Prompto says right back, and gets undressed.

"I overestimated myself," Ignis says, and she sounds so disappointed in herself that Prompto’s still wriggling out of her trousers when she crawls under the blanket, needing to be right next to Ignis, right now.

"Maybe you just underestimated me," she says. It’s meant to be a joke, haha, no way Prompto could exceed expectations, but it comes out plaintive instead.

Ignis is naked, and Prompto naked except her panties and an old t-shirt, and they’re pressed together, because the quickest way to warm someone up is skin-on-skin contact, right? But it also means Ignis has a leg between Prompto’s legs, still shivering, and even icy cold it’s making Prompto’s body respond.

"Want me to eat you out?" she asks after maybe a minute, and presses closer, her chest up against the side of Ignis’ chest, her hand cradling the weight of one of Ignis’ boobs. It’s cold; Prompto rubs her thumb over the peak of her nipple, which is already hard. "It might warm you up."

"You’re certainly hot enough," Ignis says, dry and warm and fond, so Prompto gets herself under the blanket and between Ignis’ legs.

She can’t see down here, so she hopes she’s not pressing on any of Ignis’ bigger bruises. Ignis moves when Prompto kisses and gently bites her inner thighs, small and jerky, and it’s hard to tell what’s squirming and what’s flinching in pain. Ignis’ hands move restlessly over Prompto’s scalp and the sides of her face, tracing her jawline and touching the soft skin behind her ears, and when Prompto runs a thumb over her cunt to orientate herself, find her clit, she tenses all up.

That’s probably the good kind of squirming, Prompto figures, and does it again, and then follows it up with her tongue.

She loves eating Ignis out. She loves having Ignis’ thighs around her head and feel her tremble. She loves wringing each and every sound from her, even if she doesn’t gasp Prompto’s name like people do in porn. She loves the taste and how wet Ignis gets and how wrung out she is afterwards. She loves it because it’s _Ignis_, and it’s _sex_. She thinks she loves it more than Ignis does, which still feels bad even though she’s had long enough to tell herself it doesn’t matter.

She loves Ignis’ hands in her hair, too, but this time the tugging is too insistent. "Prompto," Ignis says, and gently pulls Prompto away until Prompto’s head is resting between her boobs and her legs tucked up under one of Ignis’ legs. "I’m sorry."

"No, it’s good," Prompto says, then adds: "Is this hurting you?"

"A little," Ignis admits.

Prompto rolls off carefully, trying not to feel bad. It was Ignis who’d been beaten up, not her, so it’s stupid she feels this bad. Her throat and chest, not getting the memo, ache; her eyes sting with tears. She can picture it in her head; Ignis, blind, not realising it’s a trap until too late. Being beaten to the ground, held down, having her clothes and pockets searched for anything worth taking. But how did they treat her? Like a person, worth something for ransom, or like meat, dragged around on the ground? Did they tie her up? Lock her somewhere?

"I’m sorry," she says, and there’s nothing else she can do. If they were soulmates — she touches the bond she does have, and gets no response.


End file.
